₦airaland Forum

Its just an observation and it is pertinent to note as there was different opinion when the news broke then that she changed and went for pilgrimage to the holy land; Saudi Arabia. Some said she truly changed while some said let's wait and when she returns from the holy land. This interview was made after her return which I try to pick out one or two things to probably answer people's question on her commitment to the deen.

It is her life truly, I am not disputing but has a popular artist, it is normal for people to meddle into her personal life.

edo3: Na she sabi. Pls am new on ds site. Abeg ring bell for me.

You're highly welcome.....

davuvid: So wot exactly are u sayin dude!!!!

My point is that she is not a down to heart muslim as she is ready to drop Islam if opportunity comes her way. "Can be a pastor if she gets a christian husband that requires her to be".

Have you always been a Muslim?


My father was a Christian and
my mother was a
Muslim. After my mother’s death, I decided to
practise her religion. Even before her death, I
had wanted to go for Hajj but there was no
chance.


Stories started flying round when this story
broke. Some said you found a rich ‘Alhaji’
who insisted you must convert to Islam before
he married you…


People must talk and if they don’t, they will die.
But to answer your question, I don’t think such
can happen. I don’t see why any man would tell
me to change my religion before he can marry
me. Funny enough, my boyfriend is not even an
Alhaji. Going on Hajj was something I desired. It
is not even meant for Muslims alone. If you
believe in God, go to the Holy City and pray to
your God and your prayers would be answered.
People from all over the world come there.


Was your baby’s father a Muslim?


Oh yes. The baby’s late father was a Muslim. He
gave my daughter a Muslim name. We all believe
in one God. There is no dichotomy. I don’t have
to judge anybody and say the person’s religion is
bad. We are all one before God. I am still proud
of my name, Elizabeth. It is just that when you go
for Hajj and come back, you have to be more
modest. It is just that I am human and I am a
young lady who is still single. I am free to live my
life. If I get married and my husband wants me to
be Eleha (woman in purdah), then I will do it. If I
marry a pastor and my husband wants me to be a
pastor, I will do it. I have to be submissive to my
husband. For now, I am a young girl, so I think I
am still free to follow my heart and do what I
want to do. But when you go for hajj, you have
the fear of God and you believe in God.


Read the full interview-www.punchng.com/news/
nobody-forced-me-to-change-my-religion-liz-anj
orin/

May Allah increase your knowledge, wisdom and understanding for this light. Barakallahu fikum.

Joel Felix: Then who did? Because if you say it is God, i will say that it is God that used him as man to kill him so if you have anything to say, go on.

“There was another battle with
the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jair
from Bethlehem killed Goliath from Gath.” (2
Samuel 21:19).

The link to the article;

www.vanguardngr.com/2013/11/david-kill-goliath-1/

This was culled from vanguard news article; discrepancy of the highest order.

By Femi Aribisala
The same “infallible” bible also credits the killing
of Goliath to Elhanan, one of David’s mighty men.
One of the myths of Christianity is the infallibility
of the bible. Quoting Paul, some Christians insist
every word in the bible is “God-breathed.” (2
Timothy 3:16). When you identify contradictions
in the bible, they either refuse to acknowledge
them or try to rationalise them away with
highfalutin apologetics. However, these
apologetics have not made the contradictions
disappear. All they do is establish that these
bible-fanatics are not committed to the truth.
Christians generally believe little David killed
mighty Goliath, according to the “infallible”
account of 1 Samuel 17:50-51. This feat is
drummed into us from childhood. We act in plays
celebrating David’s victory. We listen to sermons
extolling his achievement. However, the same
“infallible” bible also credits the killing of Goliath
to Elhanan, one of David’s mighty men. This
contradiction leads to the inevitable conclusion
that while the bible might indeed be a highly
inspired book, it is nevertheless not infallible.
Bible discrepancies
2 Samuel says: “There was another battle with
the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jair
from Bethlehem killed Goliath from Gath.” (2
Samuel 21:19). This record of Elhanan (as
opposed to David) killing Goliath can be found in
the following bible translations among many
others: New International Version (NIV);
American Standard Version (ASV); New American
Standard Bible (NASB); New American Standard
Bible, Updated Edition (NASU); The Amplified
Bible (AMP); Revised Standard Version (RSV);
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV); and
Today’s English Version (TEV).
Other bible translations of the same 2 Samuel
21:19 say Elhanan killed “the brother of Goliath.”
These translations include the King James
Version (KJV); New King James Version (NKJV);
The Living Bible (TLB); and New Living
Translation (NLT).
Of the latter, the New King James Version is
remarkably unreliable. As a matter of policy,
King James sometimes adds its own words to
bible verses, effectively doctoring their meaning.
In its own defence, it warns its readers in its
introductory pages that: “words or phrases in
italics indicate expressions in the original
language which require clarification by
additional English words.” The need for such
dubious “clarification” led the New King James
Version to alter 2 Samuel 21:19 as follows: “Again
there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where
Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the
Bethlehemite killed THE BROTHER OF Goliath
the Gittite.”
Although the translation says Elhanan slew “the
brother of Goliath;” the words “the brother of”
are written in italics, indicating that they do not
appear in the original Hebrew text but were
added at the discretion of NKJV translators. This
leads to the following conclusion: either the
original Hebrew of 2 Samuel 21:9 was not
infallible, or the doctored 2 Samuel 21:9 of NKJV
is not infallible. Whichever is the case, it means
the bible is not infallible. The bible is a book
written and compiled by men; and men are not
infallible.
Who killed Goliath?
However, my purpose here is not just to
demonstrate the fallibility of the bible. Bible-
worshipping Christians will always reject that
fact no matter what. My purpose is to determine
if David killed Goliath. Faced with the dilemma of
contradictions between 1 and 2 Samuel, the
author of 1 Chronicles, written centuries after 2
Samuel; says: “There was another battle with the
Philistines, and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi,
the brother of Goliath from Gath.” (1 Chronicles
20:5).
The question then arises as to which version we
are going to believe? Should we believe the
classical position that David killed Goliath, or
should we believe the equally biblical position
that Elhanan killed Goliath?
For a number of reasons, the account stating that
David killed Goliath is the less believable. It is in
the tradition of kings and rulers to take credit for
other people’s achievements under their
kingdom. David was no exception to this. For
example, when Joab captured Rabbah, he
tactfully gave the credit to David. David himself
went along with this charade and pretended that
he was the one who took the city. (2 Samuel
12:26-31).
It would appear that originally the killing of
Goliath was part and parcel of a collection of
tales extolling the exploits of David’s mighty men
of war known as “The Thirty.” Elhanan was one
of them. He distinguished himself by killing a
mighty Philistine called Goliath. But in the
process of magnifying the great King David, his
substitution as the killer of Goliath was not long
in coming.
Saul and David
The account of David killing Goliath is so full of
contradictions that it is clear it is the fabricated
version. One of the problems with the account
has to do with the inability of bible-writers to
determine precisely when David first met Saul.
We are told that when Saul transgressed against
the Lord, God sent an evil spirit to trouble him. (1
Samuel 16:14). Someone then recommended to
Saul that he should hire David to play the harp,
offering the dubious thesis that soothing music is
a demon-repellent. But then the man
recommending David said something strange: he
extolled David, a young teenager who was not
even old enough to be in the army, as a man of
war: “I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite,
who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a
man of war.” (1 Samuel 16:18).
This description is a giveaway. It is obviously
written after the fact. There is no basis for
describing David, a youth keeping sheep, as “a
mighty man of valour” and “a man of war.” By all
accounts, David was not even a man yet.
On this recommendation, Saul sent word to Jesse,
David’s father, that his son should be seconded to
him. However, David entered Saul’s service not
as a harp-playing musician, but as his armour-
bearer, even though we are told later that Saul’s
armour was too heavy for David. (1 Samuel
17:38-39). Nevertheless, whenever Saul came
under attack by the evil spirit, David would play a
harp and the evil spirit would depart. Saul
quickly took a liking to David, and he sent to his
father a second time that David’s secondment to
him should become permanent. (1 Samuel 16:22).
However, when we get to the incident where
David is alleged to have killed Goliath, we
discover to our surprise that this same David,
who was supposed to be Saul’s armour-bearer/
musician, had never met Saul before. In that
contradictory account, David was just a young
boy tending sheep. His father sent him to deliver
lunch to his two brothers at the war-front. On
arriving there, he found Goliath terrorizing
everybody and offered to fight against him.
He was then brought to Saul who, on meeting
him for the very first time, said to him: “You are
not able to go against this Philistine to fight with
him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war
from his youth.” (1 Samuel 17:33). However, in
the earlier version, David was specifically
introduced to Saul as “a man of war.” Contrary to
the earlier account where Saul sent emissaries to
David’s father twice, he now did not know who
David’s father was. He asked Abner, his military
commander: “Whose son is this young man?” (1
Samuel 17:55). (Continued).

By Reno Omokri
Nigerians always blame the government in
power for the problems of the nation even
though many of these preceded the government
in power. Why do we always do this?
For instance, ask any Nigerian what the problem
is with Nigeria and they will say like, Chinua
Achebe, that it is leadership, forgetting that
Nigeria’s leaders come from amongst us; and if
we are saying that our problem is leadership, we
are invariably supporting the racist Rhodesian
doctrine that a black man would thrive best
under white rule.
So if our problem is not leadership, what then is
it?
I propose that our problem in Nigeria is that we
lack a sense of history and we live only in the
present moment which means that we are always
reacting and hardly ever pro-acting.
If my five year old son comes to me and tells me
that he has lost his toy, I will ask him to think
back to the last time that he saw it and begin the
search from there.
Nigeria has seen phenomenal growth in the last
three years with our Gross Domestic Product,
GDP, growing at a rate of over 6% per annum
making us one of the world’s 10 fastest growing
economies.
Yet, we still have areas of Nigeria where
population growth is higher than the growth rate
of our GDP; and it is only common sense that
where population outpaces production, there
will be crisis. This is a theory that Reverend
Malthus propounded and which has stood the
test of time.
Between 1960 when Nigeria got independence
and 1966 when we experienced the first military
intervention in governance, Nigeria experienced
phenomenal growth – a feat that has evaded us
since, except for the growth we have had in the
last three years. Almost all of the national
institutions that were responsible for our
growth pre-1999, were products of that first
golden era before the first coup, such as the four
great universities, (Lagos, Ife, Nsukka and Zaria),
Kainji Dam, Nigeria Airways etc.
Also, in the same time period, we had some of
the best civil servants in the world and our
public service was very functional. There were
reports from that era that some of our
politicians were corrupt, but it is universally
acknowledged that our civil servants of those
times were above board.
Our hospitals were renowned worldwide and it
will surprise some to note that the Saudi Royal
family received treatment at the University
College Hospital, Ibadan, in the early 60s.
At that time we did not have oil in the quantum
that we have today, yet, the nation was thriving,
we had little or no foreign debt and we were first
amongst equals in the council of emerging
nations that included Indonesia, Brazil and
Egypt.
But all these changed after 1966. So, as I would
say to my five year old, if you are looking for a
thing, go back to the last place where you saw it.
That place is 1966!
Pre-1966, admission into primary and secondary
schools was purely on merit. The same was the
case for universities as well as the federal civil
service. After 1966 when the military intervened
and ended the First Republic all that changed and
has remained the same till today.
A child could no longer bank on academic
prowess as the yardstick for his gaining entry
into primary and secondary schools. Children at
their most tender years, when they were being
emotionally scripted were told that even though
they passed and passed well, they were not good
enough for government funded schools because
of where they came from.
With the Quota system of entrance into public
schools introduced after 1966 and enshrined by
the military into our body polity extant laws,
children as young as nine got to understand that
in Nigeria, where you come from is more
important than how intelligent and hardworking
you are.
Now, the sad thing about the policy of quota
systems is that geneticists in the very best
universities of the world have established that
some races and tribes are not more intelligent
than others and as such you can find intelligence
in almost equal measure wherever you use it as a
yard stick. In fact, many, including the Harvard
Medical Journal, have reported that culture is
more to blame than intelligence for the reason
why some peoples are backward while others
are progressive.
And our culture has been that children who are
more endowed intellectually are held back and
children who could grow their intellectual
capacity are prevented from doing so because
there was no need to challenge them
intellectually. Come as you are, the system says.
This system would probably have brought
minimal damage if it was limited to secondary
schools, but it is not.
After completing secondary school, post 1966
Nigerian youths faced the same issues in gaining
admission to Nigerian universities. Cut off marks
and catchment areas were discriminately
apportioned using region as a yard stick. So,
after being told at age nine that were you came
from was more important than your intelligence
or your academic hard work, the message is
reinforced at age 16-17 when you are still in your
formative years.
At 16, you enter university and study for four or
five years (ASUU permitting) and then graduate
and go through your National Youth Service (one
of the best policies the military bequeathed to
Nigeria) and then you start to look for a job.
The largest employer of labour is the
government, so naturally you start there. And
what do you find? At age 24, just as when you
were nine and sixteen, you are now faced with a
policy that says where you are from is more
important than what you can bring into the
system. You are told that although you are
qualified, the system must take people who are
less qualified than you because of where you are
from and where they are from.
So, between the ages of nine and 24, your psyche
has been reinforced and scripted with the
message that where you are from is more
important than what you bring to the table.
Why wouldn’t a post 1966 civil servant face
temptation to steal when merit is not the order
of the day and you are forced to serve under
someone who did not get his placement by merit
- who enjoys perks and privileges far in excess of
you? How can such a system promote morale
and how can you have efficiency where morale is
low?
Prior to 1966, an Nnamdi Azikiwe could win
election in Ibadan and an Umoru Altine could
win election as the first mayor of Enugu, but how
can we replicate that ideal when, in every form
you have filled since the age of 6, your ethnicity,
state of origin and religion has mattered more
than your Nigerianness. But whenever you
watch television in the 1980s you see the
MAMSER directorate showing you clips of your
leaders telling you that where you come from
does not matter and what matters is that “we are
all MAMSER people who want the basic things of
life”.
It is not until you get to your 30s and you watch
as those same leaders that sold you and your
parents that line form themselves into Northern
and Southern Political Leaders Forum that you
realized that you have been had!
And then young people who through no fault of
their own have been conditioned to only live in
the moment are then manipulated by these same
set of leaders to begin to blame the government
of the day for crumbling infrastructure that has
been neglected for years and is only now being
addressed after decades of neglect for the simple
reason that we now have a leader who emerged
not through the establishment but through
events that could only be described as divine.
And then you wonder, do they know their
friends from their enemies?
I mentioned Kainji Dam earlier but young people
would be surprised to note that between 1979
and 1999 no new power plants were initiated and
the one commissioned in 1982 was initiated in
1978! Yet, these same young people egged on by
those who have milked the system in that time
frame point accusing fingers at the man who is
making a difference.
Take something as universal as power. In
Nigeria, history has been made as the power
sector has just been privatized by President
Goodluck Jonathan in fulfillment of the promises
he made to Nigerians when he launched the
Roadmap to Power Sector Reforms on August
26th 2010. But before then, Nigeria has and is still
suffering from chronic power shortages.
Now, power is one of those industries that rely
strictly on efficient manpower in order to
function properly. But power has been
exclusively managed and operated by the
government. Now who would the government
hire to run our power plants, transmission grids
and their commercial offices? Of course it would
be Nigerian citizens.
Now, are those citizens the very best Nigeria
has? No! These are citizens employed as part of
the federal civil service that depends not on
merit but on ethnicity for its hiring. So what then
do Nigerians expect from such a venture?
You can repeat this for our refineries, airports,
railways, sea ports, and other vital national
institutions.
It is a notorious fact (yes, that phrase again) that
you are only as strong as your weakest link.
Therefore where you have not taken in the best
right from secondary up to university and up to
the civil service, your system is only as strong as
the least endowed person.
To put this into perspective, if you have a school
entry system that gives someone who scored 2
admission, and stops someone who scored 290
from getting admitted, your system is only as
strong as a 2.
The saddest thing is that if that 2 knew that he
would only get in if he had a 290 and nothing else
would ensure he gets in, he would be forced to
build his capacity to at least a 290. It is called
competition and that is what existed between
1960 and 1966.
That, my people, is the problem with Nigeria.
President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership
he offers to Nigeria is not our problem. As a
matter of fact it is part of our solutions. Why do I
say this? Because this is a man who has seen that
even though we have made phenomenal
progress in the last three years such as we have
never witnessed between 1966 till date, yet we
can do better.
And speaking as a private citizen, it is my hope
that the coming national conference would look
into these issues and go back in time to the place
where we lost it.
Reno Omokri is Special Assistant (New Media) to
the President.

Do you agree with his observation above?

Why is Torres wasteful in front of goal like dis

FBS: Luiz get pass.wetin.

Willian!!! yet another wasted chance.

What a selfish play!

KdB making way for Demba Ba

Another miss from Fernando Torres, second of the match and coupled with a rebound miss from Willian

Juan Mata wining his first tackle after his second attempt

The match is now live on Super Sport 3

Havilah93: Just call him Rambo. O ti maa ye wa bayen.

Don't know you guys have already nickname him

FBS: online streams. check here

You are appreciated.

The ref blows to end the first period.
2-0 in favour of Chelsea all thanks to Fernando Torres and Nascimento Ramires.

Since our Capital One Cup match against Swindon today will not be on Super Sport, where can one get to have a glimpse of the action?

I bet to disagree with your thoughts about Mikel....had it mean that he was let go either to Galatasaray or Napoli, you would have been seeing a replica of what he does in Eagles shirt. I am always surprise at the lack of patient by Chelsea fans, this is a manager we all crave for his return and the season still in its infancy; we have started yelling for a sack. Let's wait and see how things will get better soon.

190: José Mourinho wants to sign Dortmund star, Ilkay Gündogan, in January. [Daily Star]

This dude is gona leave Chelsea bankrupt, if dz is true then mourinho doesnt kno wat he's doin
Dis man is certainly out to destroy and not help chelsea

useless coach!!

far worse than benitez mscheww

abeg bring dimatteo back this noise maker is nothing but a Phool with grey hairs

Haba guy, this is damn too much and an insult to the pedigree and personality of the 'Happy One'. It is too early to judge.

Kay-Dee:
. . . . . and we are, top of the table. So may it remain come May 11th.

If wishes were horses, beggars will ride. Orisirisi....

nateevs: Mata does not need to step up anything. The stats are there for you to see. You either want Mata or you don't. Jose needs to learn (as awkward as that may seem) that there are other ways to playing football. If you want to use Mata, you aim to keep the ball and not resort to counter attack with every single team. This is why you don't see Mata. If you notice, even the likes of Hazard has become less effective because he is doing too much running.

Slow it down a little and move the ball around. Use space and movement to wear the opposition down. The combined value of Chelsea's midfield players is £150m and this does not include the value of Lampard and Mikel. This has to count for something.

You would expect that we could play possession based football against Everton. Jose concentrates too much on hard work so much that the likes of Azpilicueta and Mata will not be favoured while ninjahs like Ramires who constantly concede possession and put the team under pressure are playing every minute. All because they have an engine.

Basic rule in football, you need runners in your team to win the ball because you cannot keep it.


--------------------------------------------------------------

Rant over. Still early days. Just pointing out the negative sides of Jose's tactics. There's massive potential in the team and I hope it lives up to expectation.

Well said but if the likes of Eto'o and schurle had converted their chances, it would have been anothe ball game entirely. All in all, there are positives in the team and I don't want blame on any (either the player or coach) for the loss. Better days ahead since we have a goal poacher in the team now and with his performance today let's just hope he get better.

Mukina, dayokanu and the rest bad belle, ur days are coming......una go here weeen

KnowAll: To be sincere, I have always believe in one Nigeria, but the bottom-line, if this contraption called Nigeria is stifling our growth, whereby unqualified people keeps on running our nation, we might as-well split. So many European nations have been formed since the early 90's, countries like, Ukrian, Georgia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Coratia, Serbia, Moldovia, Estonia, e.t.c And if the Referendum goes well in Scotland and Spain, we should have Scotland and Catalonia.

The only continent that has been stuck in the past is Africa. Even at that, in our own back yard, Southern-Cameroon came out of Eastern region of Nigeria. Why were they given that referendum and other part of Nigeria has been denied the same referendum. Biafra tried to break-away we fought a war because of that. So why give Southern-Cameroon a referendum, I don't get it. If our attitude now is nobody leave the sinking ship, we might as-well claim back Southern -Cameroon.

Or was it part of the Balewa regime's strategy to weaken the Eastern region!!!! I don't get it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's hope for the best....

Today a great march and protest is taking place in
the Catallan region of the nation of Spain.
According to the polls 52 per cent of the people
from that region wish to break off from Spain and
to establish a new European sovereign state.
Later this year the people of Scotland are having
their own referendum to determine whether or
not they will stay in the United Kingdom and again,
from the polls, it is very clear that the majority of
Scots wish to have their own new sovereign state
and that the Scottish Nationalist Party enjoys
massive support. Nobody in either Spain or the
United Kingdom has insulted those people or
labelled them as ”ethnic jingoists” or ”primitive
tribalists” for wanting to break off from the
greater whole and establish their own country.
This is because everyone respects the right of the
various ethnic groups and nationalities within
their wider nation to exercise their right of self-
determination which is an integral and
fundamental aspect of international law.
Exercising that right does not turn them into
villains and does not make them any less patriotic
than their compatriots who do not share their
views. It just means that they have a different
perspective and that they believe, as many
believed before Malaysia and Singapore broke up,
that the interests of their various peoples are
better served when and if they go their separate
ways.
They opted to be friendly neighbours rather than
to be compelled to remain within the same
territory against their collective will. As we in
Nigeria approach the 100 year anniversary of our
1914 Lugardian amalgamation and, as the 2015
elections are fast approaching with both the
northern region and the south-south zone
desperate to take or to hold on to power at any
cost respectively, we need to begin to ask
ourselves some basic and fundamental questions
about our future. For example is our interest
better served by remaining as one nation or is it
time for those nationalities that wish to leave the
federation in a peaceful and orderly way, as a
result of a legitimate and honest referendum, be
alllowed to go?
If the breaking up of larger countries into smaller
and more viable ones is good enough for India
(which broke into three), the Sudan (which broke
into two), Czechoslovakia (which broke into two),
Yugoslavia (which broke into 5), the Soviet Union
(which broke into 15) and numerous other
countries over the years why is it not good enough
for us? Again why should those that believe that
Nigeria ought to break up be subjected to so much
suspicion, ridicule, contempt and insults from
those that do not share their views? Some of the
questions that need to be answered are as follows-
firstly is our union working? Secondly is our
marriage a good one and if it is is it a happy one as
well? Are we satisfied with what has essentially
become a country that has been turned into
nothing more than (with apologies to Chief Bode
George) ”Turn by Turn Nigeria?” where each ethnic
group simply looks forward to enjoying its time to
control the federation and all the nations
resources from an all powerful centre? Are we not
meant to be far more than this? Is this what the
founding fathers of our nation envisaged?
More than anything else the recent igbo/yoruba
debate over the issue of the status of Lagos state
and the deportation of a handful of igbo destitutes
back to the east has proved to me that we as a
people are very different from one another and
that our interests may be better served if we are
no longer bound together as one. I dare to voice
this opinion even though many yorubas share it
but will not say so publicly. Is it not time for us to
begin to accept the bitter truth that our marriage is
uncomfortable and unhappy and that it may not
have been made in heaven or ordained by God? Is
it not clear that each region or each nationality
ought to be able to develop at their own pace? Is it
not time for us to have a confederation of
nationalities in Nigeria and to restructure the
country drastically to give maximum autonomy to
the various regions and nationalities or indeed is it
not time to just break up and go our separate
ways?
Many may disagree but one thing that I believe
that we can at least agree on is that perhaps it is
time for us to be courageous enough to begin to
talk about these issues openly and debate them.
We must not sweep our differences under the
carpet and ignore them as if they do not exist but
instead we must find the courage and muster the
resolve to acknowledge them and understand
them. As far as I am concerned this is the challenge
of our time and these are the questions that needs
to be answered. Whatever happens in 2015 and
whoever wins, whether it be a northerner or
Goodluck Jonathan of the south-south, I see blood
on the horizon and I see disaster approaching. We
must open up the space now and consider the
unpleasant assertion that the price that a united
Nigeria attracts may not be worth it because we
are getting nothing but failure after failure as our
return.
I do not have the answers and I do not claim that I
do. Indeed I may well be wrong which is why I
would be interested in hearing the views of others
and particularly those from the younger
generation who may see things very differently.
Whichever way it goes and regardless of what we
all think let us not allow this debate to be driven
by ignorance, pettiness, hate or acrimony. Let us
not insult one another here or act as if any tribe or
nationality are angels whilst others are demons.
Let us join issues and exchange ideas in a civil,
restrained and decent manner without hurling any
insults at one another or allowing our emotions to
becloud our thinking.
At the end of the day we all want the same thing-
namely, what is in the best interest of the Nigerian
people and what type of arrangement will allow
them to achieve their full potentials? That is the
issue and that alone. Over to you.

By: Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

dayokanu: Mukina is still around, Akolwole no longer comes here, Same with Kitaun, Somze razorr etc.

Debosky is still around and Jackal has transformed to coogar

I know lot of things would have happened during my sabbatical.

If you want to be the best, you beat the best.

dayokanu: Longest time amodu.

Where you run go all these years?

I be Bayern tokantokan

Don't mind me jawe, I'v been busy. Though I do log-in but its just to read the frontpage news. How is the likes of Mukina, Akolawole, and d rest?

dayokanu: 10 man Chelsea? Did they start with 10 men? Penalties? I didnt know that wasnt part of the game.

We patiently wait for the time when another German team would send Jose out as we usually do

We are making mouth ooo. Cos our skill is sure. We dont need to play like cowards and park 11 men behind the ball like some teams

We are the current European and Super cup champs , So if we no make mouth who deserves to make mouth? Chelski?

Longest time, Shey u be Bayern faithful?

vanguard news----- Eagles land in Belo
Horizonte - Nigeria’s Super Eagles are
expected to arrive Belo Horinzonte, the venue
of their opening game in the 2013 FIFA
Confederations’ Cup this morning after they
touched down in Sao Paolo, Brazil yesterday
night. The Eagles traveling plans were
thwarted on Thursday, after the players
embarked on a striker to demanding for the
payment of outstanding [...]The post Eagles
land in Belo Horizonte appeared first on
Vanguard News. http://ow.ly/ 2xD29U

In January of 2011, Fernando Torres switched places with his long-lost twin brother Alberto. Now, both Fernando and Alberto are living their life-long dreams.
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Fernando Torres sits on his couch, in a simple flat on the outskirts of Madrid, watching Chelsea play Swansea City on an illegal internet stream. As his brother Alberto Hernandez steps off the Stamford Bridge pitch, Chelsea fans cheer the entrance of Demba Ba, who will almost certainly take over the starting spot that once belonged to the man Chelsea fans know as Fernando Torres. The real Fernando Torres shakes his head and closes his laptop, then gets up to do the dishes.

Watching his brother struggle on the football pitch hurts, but he knows that his brother is living his dream. When Torres wakes up and walks to the train station to head into work, there will be no media following him. He's an accountant now, and for the first time in his life, he is happy.

***

A month ago, an SB Nation employee informed me of a tip they received, alleging that the man who currently plays as Fernando Torres for Chelsea is an impostor. Were this tip about any other footballer, it would have gone disregarded, but in the case of Torres, it seemed like the only logical explanation for his terrible play since moving to Chelsea.

I flew to Tenerife to investigate, and the details I was able to unearth are jarring, but simultaneously a perfect explanation for what's happened to the career of the man the public believes to be Fernando Torres.

***

This story isn't anything like a popular Disney film where two separated siblings meet years later at summer camp. Neither Fernando Torres or Alberto Hernandez knew their biological parents. Their mother, a young and poor single parent-to-be, decided to give her two boys up for adoption when she found out she was pregnant with identical twins. Social services got her in touch with a university that was looking to study the development of identical twins in different households who had no clue that they had a twin elsewhere.

Fernando went to a family in Madrid and was never told that he was adopted. As far as he knew, he was the biological son of Flori Sanz and Jose Torres. His older siblings obviously figured out that their mother was never pregnant with Fernando, but kept the family's secret as children, and eventually ceased to care about Fernando's biological parents. It's not that they're keeping a secret these days, but more that they never think about where he came from. To Israel and Maria Paz Torres, Fernando has always been their brother.

Growing up in Madrid, Fernando had access to high-level youth teams, and eventually won a trial with Atletico Madrid in his youth. He joined the Atletico Madrid youth team at 11-years-old, slowly became a star, won a youth title as a 15-year-old, and was eventually promoted to the first team as a teenager. His football career skyrocketed, as he became a Spanish international and one of La Liga's biggest stars before he transfered to Liverpool.

The story of Alberto Hernandez is a much different one. He was adopted by farmers and worked the land. Until the age of 16, he had never seen cable or satellite television. Alberto's father wanted him to inherit the family farm, but he always had a fascination with numbers and earned excellent marks in math in school. He had big dreams, but his father insisted that if he didn't want to take over the family business, he should at least do something sensible that would earn him a steady paycheck and assist his father in running the farm in some way. So, Alberto became an accountant.

He always liked football, though he didn't know much about the big stars. He read about the Spanish national side, and his grandfather was a casual supporter of Sevilla. He was the best player at his school and regularly kicked a ball around the farm as a child, but never harbored aspirations of becoming serious player. He never tried out for any of the higher level youth teams in his area, because it simply never occurred to him that football was something he should play competitively or work on seriously.

When he went to university, Alberto saw football on something other than a grainy black and white television for the first time in his life, and he was hooked. In 2002, him and his friends watched a young man named Fernando Torres break onto the La Liga scene and score in an Atletico Madrid match. Someone joked that Alberto and Torres shared some features and looked a bit similar. At this time, their resemblance wasn't entirely obvious. In his off-the-farm, early-university rebellious phase, Alberto shaved his head and didn't shave his facial hair.

From the first time he saw La Liga, Alberto became obsessed. He was too self-conscious to play football in a league, but watched the game and worked out constantly. He watched football matches with friends, but just appeared to be a casual fan to most. In private, the game was the world to Alberto, and not just because of what happened on the pitch.

He spent his days dreaming about playing in front of roaring crowds, using the world's finest hair product, and taking money baths. He wanted the exact opposite of everything he had coming to him in his soon-to-be life as an accountant, from the fame to the unpredictability of the lifestyle.

***

As time went on, more and more people would joke to Alberto that he looked a lot like Fernando Torres. Their status as identical twins still wasn't incredibly obvious, though that could have been because everyone that Alberto met convinced themselves that Torres couldn't possibly have a long-lost twin that no one knew about. The professional fitness training that Torres received and the professional grooming products that he used caused their appearances to be different enough to place some doubt in the mind of anyone who met Alberto.

Life changed a bit for both Fernando Torres and Alberto Hernandez in 2010, just before the World Cup. Alberto had begun to seriously hate his boring life as an accountant, his boring flat, and as sweet as she was, his boring girlfriend. Fernando returned to the World Cup too quickly after injury and had to endure unbearable media scrutiny when he failed to reproduce his form from Euro 2008.

Ever since he became a global superstar, Torres daydreamt about a quiet and simple life, one with no media pressures. Whenever he tried to share these feelings with his girlfriend -- and now wife -- she told him to cut the crazy talk and focus on his football. Since July of 2010, Fernando has been focused on anything but.

Torres had never enjoyed the media spotlight and always loathed the press, but this served as a bit of a breaking point for him. He needed to get away from everything, at least temporarily, or he was going to go crazy. In the week between the end of the World Cup and his return to Liverpool training, unbeknownst to everyone, Torres went on a secret vacation to Tenerife. He didn't even tell his girlfriend.

His trip -- booked through a massive all-inclusive vacation provider, so he could partake in a holiday like somewhat normal people do -- happened to coincide with the similarly secret vacation of Alberto Hernandez. For a year, Alberto had saved for his first ever trip outside of the Spanish mainland, though a man of his background could only dream so big. He wanted to go somewhere he'd at least feel comfortably with culturally.

In July of 2010, Fernando Torres and Alberto Hernandez met for the first time in Tenerife.

***

Alberto and Fernando crossed paths a horseback riding class. Alberto knew how to ride horses, of course, but he felt like coming in from the beach to laugh at posh people who had never touched an animal larger than a lap dog. And there, atop a horse, looking like a complete jackass, was Fernando Torres.

The resemblance that the two shared suddenly became very real to Alberto. When watching Torres on television, it was easy to rationalize the improbability of the most expensive striker in history having a secret, long lost identical twin. But with Fernando staring him in the face, he couldn't deny the striking similarity between the two anymore. Like a ton of bricks, the reality hit Alberto that he had more than a coincidental connection with a man who his university friends had joked about being his twin for nearly a decade.

For Fernando, this meeting was even more stunning. At least Alberto knew about the existence of a very famous person that resembled him strongly. Fernando had no idea about Alberto's existence, because he had no reason to know and no way of knowing.

***

"I was already stunned to meet Fernando Torres at the resort where I work here in Tenerife," Fernando and Alberto's horseback riding instructor, who has asked to remain anonymous, told me as we met at a cafe in Santa Cruz. "But you can imagine my shock when I saw another man who looked exactly like him in my class. It was surreal."

"They were much more stunned than I was, though the brother who was not Fernando Torres looked a bit less shocked. I guess he probably always suspected that he had a twin brother, since he's seen Fernando on television."

I was able to track down the waitress and bartender that served Fernando and Alberto at the resort as well.

"I know it's rude to eavesdrop on customers," said the waitress, "but I couldn't help it. I mean, there was Fernando Torres, the Fernando Torres, sitting at a table with a man who looked like a mirror image of him. How can you not want to listen to what they're talking about?"

"They tried to retrace their childhoods and couldn't come up with any evidence that they had been separated at birth or anything like that, but the resemblance was so obvious. There's no other reasonable explanation."

After dinner on the night that they met, Fernando and Alberto moved to the hotel bar, where the bartender claims the pair drank heavily and began to talk about their lifelong dreams.

"Fernando kept babbling on about how he hates football and the media, how the media's treatment of him during the World Cup made him want to quit football forever, and how he just wants to disappear from the public eye and live a quiet life, " said the bartender. "Alberto was flabbergasted, and told Fernando that he's dreamed about having a footballer's life for years. At one point, after he had at least 10 drinks, Fernando yelled 'You want to be me? You want the pressure? You can fucking have it!'"

Apparently, the pair took that drunken outburst seriously.

***

The details of how Fernando and Alberto swapped lives are murky, but here's what we do know*:

* Sometime during their holiday in Tenerife, Fernando Torres and Alberto Hernandez decided to swap lives.
* The pair did not decide to inform their significant others. Alberto is now living as the father of Fernando's two children, and Fernando is dating Alberto's now-ex girlfriend, Maria.
* The actual swap did not take place until January of 2011.
* When the pair met, Fernando gave Alberto enough money to pay his bills while taking unpaid leave from work.
* Alberto concocted a family emergency that would allow him to keep his job -- or for Fernando to take his job -- while he left for six weeks.
* During the six-week period comprised of the last two weeks of December 2010 and all of January 2011, Alberto hired a personal fitness trainer in an attempt to get himself into good enough shape to pass as a professional footballer. He already kept exceptionally fit, but needed to come as close as possible to emulating Fernando Torres.
* While Alberto was able to duplicate the fitness of the real Fernando Torres -- who suffered from various fitness issues during his career -- it took him the better part of a year to occasionally look like a professional footballer on the pitch.

*This information was obtained through anonymous sources at Chelsea football club and Madrid accounting firm Raul, Raul and Raul.

***

When I asked the horseback riding instructor when he decided to go public with his knowledge, he said that he feels Chelsea FC have a right to know that they've been conned out of hundreds of millions, while the public have a right to know that they're being duped. The bartender and waitress were unwilling to tell me why they decided to come forward, but the Chelsea t-shirt clearly visible under the bartender's company-issued polo shirt might be a clue.

Fernando Torres' new landlord has figured out the swap too. "I've been an Atletico Madrid fan my entire life. My father was an ultra. His father played in the youth team. I bleed for the club. So when Alberto left and came back looking even more like Fernando Torres than usual, I had a suspicion."

"I knew it was Torres for two reasons. One, because Alberto always had this miserable look on his face. This man was smiling when he came into the building. Two, because he had a Dolce and Gabbana watch on. Alberto wouldn't live here if he could afford something like that."

For some reason, Fernando Torres still wears an expensive watch, even though his landlord and my source at his place of employment who has discovered the swap inform me that Torres has a wide smile on his face every day. He loves his job, his small apartment, his quiet life, and he's grown to love his 'boring' new girlfriend, Maria.

Perhaps he keeps it as a reminder of where he came from? Or maybe a small part of him misses a life of fame and fortune? His landlord has another theory.

"I think it's his subtle way of showing everyone around him that his lifestyle is a choice. He wants everyone to know he can go back to being somebody whenever he wants."

But that's all it is. It's a symbol of power. Because Fernando Torres is happy with his new life, and he's never returning to the spotlight if he can help it. I've done my duty in getting the truth out in the public, and I hope that, for Torres' sake, the truth is too surreal to be taken seriously.

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2013/1/10/3859966/fernando-torres-chelsea

But i red that he converted to Islam during my search on google and saw a video of his on youtube.

For you all commending this decision of the Ogun State Government, i don't think you are putting the affected student into consideration.
What will be the fate of the alumni and undergraduates of this Nigeria Premier University of Education?
Will the certificates of graduates from this school be valid again?
What will the certificates of the undergraduates carry?
These and some others are the question we need to ask oursleves before jumping into conclusion if it worth commending.